Through the case study of Salwa, active muslim feminist in Québec, this
master’s thesis has for objective to identify diverse factors orienting the
political commitment of a muslim feminist in western context. Our basic
premise anticipated her exposition to political paradoxes due to the existing
tensions between feminism and multiculturalism in western democracies
and the intersection of her identities as “muslim” but also as “woman”; two
hierarchical categories which, at first, appeared fundamental in our
problematic. Only, our interdisciplinary and intersectional approach analysis
of Salwa’s identity process of the aforementioned paradoxes revealed the
existence of several non-hierarchical claimed identities which, in this
context, were eclipsed by the political level. This revelation questions the
centrality of the “muslim” and “woman” categories. So, if we believed that
the western context could orient the political commitment of muslim
feminists in a reducing direction by requiring from them that they prioritize,
in spite of their “woman” and “muslim” identities, a political stake between
sexism and racism, we see that a consideration, even intersectional, of axis
of oppression alone in the construction of one’s political identity can also be
reducing. If the intersectional approach wants to take into account the
interaction of axis of oppression acting simultaneously for the same
individual's, it also has to take into account the way the context hides the
interplay between hierarchical and not hierarchical identities by reducing the
individual to it(s) presumed axis of oppression.